Zimbabwe’s Army Brigadier Holds On To Farmer’s Crop
Harare, – A Zimbabwe National Army Brigadier has ignored a court order to allow Headlands farmer, Charles Lock access to his USD 700 000 tobacco and maize crop.
Lock told Radio VOP at the weekend that Brigadier General Justin Itayi Mujaji had threatened to gun him down if he enters the farm despite a court on order on Thursday granting him an application to access his crop.
Soldiers deployed at Karori farm by Mujaji, barred Lock from getting on to the farm in full view of the police.
“Armed soldiers barred me from entering the farm when I went there on Friday after the High Court ruling,” said Lock, whose case mirrors the situation of thousands other commercial farmers who have been illegally and violently driven off their farms by top government and security chiefs.
High Court judge Bharat Patel ordered the police to assist the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff to ensure that Lock is able to access and control all his movable assets, including crops on the farm in Headlands,Manicaland.
The ruling follows an application by Lock to the High Court seeking an order to bar Mujaji, from interfering with the control of the farmer’s goods.
“The applicant (Lock) has full and unfettered right to remove all and any of the goods, as well as any other move able assets, including his equipment and fittings in the tobacco barns, cattle handling facilities, household and personal effects, from the land referred to above,” ruled Justice Patel. “This order shall remain in operation notwithstanding the noting of an appeal against it. The costs of this application shall be paid by the first respondent (Mujaji) on an attorney-client scale.”
Lock wanted the court to force the army general to allow him to move about 150 tonnes of tobacco, grown under contract and financed by international tobacco companies to auction floors. The farmer had also asked the court for an order to allow him to move about 500 tonnes of maize to buyers such as the Grain Marketing Board.
Lock’s court challenge is one of many by white commercial farmers.
Before this latest High Court order, lock had obtained two eviction orders against Mujaji both of which had been ignored.
Mujaji’s action mirrors the lawlessness on the farms and disregard of the law by security officers most of whom are staunch supporters of president Robert Mugabe.
The often violent land seizures have been blamed for the country’s food shortages.
In November last year, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal ruled that farmers whose land was seized must be compensated by the government. But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the SADC Tribunal ruling would not be enforced and that Harare had pulled out of the Tribunal.
However, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has since said Minister Chinamasa was misdirecting the nation through making unilateral decisions without cabinet authority.
On Sunday Britain’s Daily Telegraph said it had covered Mugabe’s secret farming empire, combining six farms that had been taken from white commercial farmers. One of the farms is being used as a dairy farm by his wife, Grace, who sells about one million litres of milk a year toSwitzerland based company, Nestle.
Mugabe told a United Nations General Assembly last week that Zimbabwe’s land grab was the best thing that ever happened to Zimbabwe.
September 27, 2009
